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“Don’t you just love it?” she said. “Every day you stand on top of a mountain, make a three-hundred-sixty degree sweep, checking to see if there’s any fires. And that’s it. You’re done for the day. The rest of the time you can read, write, whatever you want. At night scruffy bears hang around your cabin. That’s the life! Compare with that, studying literature in college is like chomping down on the bitter end of a cucumber.”

“OK,” I said, “but someday you’ll have to come down off the mountain.””

-Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

(the mountain.)

and the wind picked me up
wrapped me in its rope
and tied me mad to the front of a ship
the water billowed below me
as i set sail alone
off to an island
where no man had ever been before

and there on the island
was a mountain
and on the mountain
a cabin where i could be
alone
solitary
no stranger
familiar or otherwise
knocking at the door
no brick of reality
crashing through the window

do you know how brash
a fireplace crackles
when you built it yourself
and there is no sound of traffic
to spoil it?
when there is only the sound of stars
a sound like

that.

to breathe air
untainted by the mouths of others
to make a bed
from the flotsam and jetsam
inside of your head
to walk around inside your own skull
hang your own artwork
unbalanced upon your medulla oblongota
to lean a chair upon the door
of the cerebrum
so no one can get in

to padlock and chain
the cerebellum

to make time like soup
throwing in what you will
two parts nonsense
to twelve parts inspiration
three tablespoons of nap
bring to a boil
let cool
and enjoy
serves one

to love the person
who knows you best
to mark the walls with crayons
the color of your insecurities
the shade of your denials
to explore the entire fucking spectrum
of your color wheel

and to sleep
when you are ready to sleep
to wake up
to the visceral, visceral
raw dog honest momentarily existent
then gone but always visceral
alarm clock in your stomach

and one day
there will be a knock at your cabin door
the sun will seem artificial
and you will not recognize the voice
of another
as something outside of yourself
but they will come
the authorities of reminder
the karma police
if you do not return their calls
they will mail you letters
and if you burn their letters
they will send a warrant for your arrest

you will be reinstated
brought back to the intercourse
of other people
whether it be with joy
or kicking and screaming
you do not own this planet
you should be so lucky to think
that you alone
deserve your life
there are lonely househusbands
an audience of towns
maybe the ear
receptive to the voice of the world
waiting for you

the waves crashed different
when the island learned
it was a peninsula
but fire came along
and the people formed circles
they danced
they hit their drums with love
they hit their drums with love
and the beat alters hearts
and you threw into the fire
your cabin
on top of a mountain
on an island
far from home
and watched as the smoke rised
into the cosmos
to form purple nebulas
and ancient songs
that filter down
to typewriters
and deep
deep deep down
into the soil
beneath the mountain